Front View

The Photon 4G device measures 5 inches long, 2.63 inches wide and less than half an inch thick. It weighs a formidable 5.6 ounces, owing partially to the 1700 mAh battery, which we found respectable until we tasked it to power YouTube apps and surface content on our TV.

Sprint has been cranking out one fine high-end smartphone like no other company in the market since the spring. This is to be expected from a company motivated by the competitive challenge of the AT&T-T-Mobile merger, which threatens to make Sprint the smallest carrier in the United States. Still, you have to credit Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and his team for their work. Rather than sit on the sidelines and rail about how unfair the proposed merger would be-though they are doing that too-the carrier has pumped out some unique or even beautiful phones and tablet computers. The Sprint Kyocera Echo is unique; the HTC Evo 3D 4G smartphone and HTC Evo View 4G are as beautiful as they are too similarly named to keep straight. Sprint's latest model with the 1GHz Nvidia dual-core processor and Android 2.3 "Gingerbread," the Motorola Photon 4G smartphone, is no exception. For $199.99 and a two-year contract, consumers will get in the Photon 4G a lot of what they saw in the Evo View 4G. However, they get more on the multimedia front because the handset can be paired with an HD multimedia dock for $99.99, which lets users flash their phone photos, music and other applications on HDTV screens. The first phone to do this, the Motorola Atrix 4G, didn't exactly sell like gangbusters for AT&T. Sprint is hoping to remedy that on its own 4G WiMax network. This eWEEK slide show walks you through the Photon 4G features.